Alan Bensoussan (AU)

Emeritus Professor Alan Bensoussan is one of Australia’s prominent Chinese medicine researchers. In 2007 he established Australia’s National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM) at Western Sydney University, seed funded by the Australian Government. He has been a lead investigator on numerous high quality clinical trials and studies of herbal medicine and published over 200 scientific papers, two books and several book chapters. Professor Bensoussan has had major impact on Government policies, including research that led to the introduction of national regulation of Chinese medicine practitioners in Australia in 2012 – the first western nation to do so.
NICM Health Research Institute is now one of the world’s most comprehensive integrative medicine research institutes undertaking preclinical, clinical and research translation activities. NICM has been assessed by the Australian Government’s Excellence in Research for Australia scheme as performing research ‘well above world-class’ for the last three consecutive trienniums 2012, 2015 and 2018.
In 2014 he was awarded the Lady Cilento Award by the peak Australian industry association, recognising his long-term contributions to the community. In 2013 he received the prestigious International Award for Contribution to Chinese Medicine by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology awarded to outstanding international researchers in Chinese Medicine and in 2019 the Achievement Award in Medical Science awarded with colleagues from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. In 2019 he was also awarded the International Qi Huang Award for research in Chinese medicine by the 50,000 strong Chinese Association of Chinese Medicine.